Janisse Ray

 

I first met award-winning author Janisse Ray at a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) tradeshow when her first bestseller, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood , published by Milkweed, was  released in 1999. I was bowled over by her wonderful personality and innate charm. Since then she has gone on to become a major voice for the wilderness and how we interact with it.

Her new book, Wild Spectacle, this time published by Trinity University Press, is yet another marvelous insight into Janisse, our world, and how we desperately need to treat with respect all the other creatures that share this planet with us.

Each chapter focuses on her exotic travels and adventures. Every one of her encounters is like reading a new short story that I'm instantly drawn into. From the destination of the monarch butterflies in Mexico, to sitting in a creek surrounded by wild elk close to the Canadian border, to scratching a manatee's stomach in a spring in Florida, Janisse brought me with her in every sentence.

This is one of my favorite lines: "Silence is the resting place of a forest. But the forest is never silent. Every move makes a sound, and something always moves. The wind passes underneath a single leaf, gently lifts it, then eases it down. Earthworms slide through loam, causing grains of dirt to make the tiniest of clinks as they knock against each other. Sap rises and falls through the xylem. Trees whisper as they grow, pushing upward and outward, stretching toward the sky. Leaf-cutter ants hurry along with their ripped green sails whistling."

In this remarkable new book, Janisse has again plunged herself into the world of wildness and shows what that world can teach us.

Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home, describes it perfectly:

"If there's a more open, honest, and appealing writer than Janisse Ray, I've not met her. Here she is at her best, fully immersed in wilderness, immersed in friendship, immersed in parenthood-engaged with the world in a way that few can manage in this screened-off age."

Janisse, tell me about where you live and why you love it so much.

Oh, my friend. I don’t always love the place where I live. Sometimes this is a very difficult place to exist—first of all, I live in a sparsely populated, rural place, which ensures that I deal with loneliness; and secondly, my politics, my ideals, and my beliefs are often diametrically opposed to those of my community. Of all the human needs, belonging is a major one, and even when I don’t belong culturally, I always belong to my place. I live in the delta between the Ohoopee and Altamaha Rivers. My neighbors are the tiger swallowtails, swallowtail kites, and barn swallows, also the sun, moon, and stars. There is a strange otherworldly feeling here. Millions of years ago the place was under the ocean. Although in the ensuing millennia a wonderful diversity of biota moved in, most days I feel as if the land around me remembers the silence of underwater. Sometimes I remember that silence as well.

Where were you living when you were 7 years old? Are they fond memories?

At 7 I lived on a junkyard in Baxley, Georgia, about 30 miles away from the farm where I now live.

The memories are complicated. My birth family managed to survive some tough things, including poverty and mental illness. I would not use the word “fond.” However, a junkyard is a super-interesting place to grow up, so let’s just say I have some colorful memories. Like the Thingfinders Club with my brothers, spending the coins we found in junked cars on penny candy.

Janisse as a child with her siblings and her dad, Franklin Ray.

Is there a book that changed the way you look at life?

Many, many books changed the way I look at life. Thoreau’s Walden 

was transformative at a time when I was especially open to it.

Do you have a favorite children’s book and what about it makes it so?

I’m going to vote for The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

It was a story that brought my own childhood to life. Plus it’s a perfect story, with a perfect narrative arc.

What are the funniest or most embarrassing stories your family tells about you?

Peeing the bed, hands down. I should have been an engineer, because I was always constructing lakes when I was a kid. Bad dream, another lake.

Did you have a favorite teacher and are you still in touch with her or him?

I had so many favorite teachers. I really loved my history teacher in high school, Coach John O’Brien. He was brilliant and he taught history straight from his head, not from a textbook. He could sit down and lecture for an hour about any period in history. He pulled no punches.

He told history straight, and oh my goodness, human history is nothing if not interesting. Coach still calls me occasionally to make sure I’m on the straight and narrow.

How did you meet your beloved husband Raven? How did your first date go?

I met Raven at the Florida Folk Festival. We were sitting on blankets near each other. At our meeting I had a terrible slip of the tongue. I asked him if he wanted to spend the night together. I meant “evening,” as in, did he want to sit together and listen to music that evening. But that faux paus and the subsequent glint in his eye set us on our course.

In this wedding photo—Raven Waters & I got married on the spring equinox of 2002 at Stephen Foster State Park on the Suwannee River, where we met. After the ceremony, we got in our boats & went down the river (then came back for the party.) Friends had tied cans to our boats, and they threw rose petals in the water around us.

Is there a song, person, or group that you listen to when you are feeling a bit down?

The blues, all the blues, especially Elizabeth Cotton.

The real blues make my blues go away.

How are you different now than you were in your 20s?

I was too nice and too hesitant then. I am happier being much less nice and much more decisive. Both those get me in trouble sometimes, but “being a nice girl” (my parents’ dream for me) is highly overrated.

Is there a question no one has ever asked you that you wish they would? Something, perhaps, that people would be surprised to know about you?

I wish someone would ask: Perspiration or inspiration? You know what I’d say.

Are surprised at how your life is working out?

I am surprised at how fast it’s going and how much farther along in wisdom I thought I’d be by the time I hit my 50s. When are we supposed to get the download? I could use it about now.

In your book you speak about what "Duende" means in your chapter entitled

"The Duende of Cabo Blanco". Would you comment on how that spirit still affects your life?

I continue to try to understand this idea of “duende,” which in writing can be achieved by working with

the meanings behind words and trying to describe the undercurrents of whatever is happening.

So a writer is always asking herself, What does this really mean? What is below the surface?

What are the invisibles here? The same is true for any part of life, not only writing: what is really

happening here? How does this feel, deep down?

In the chapter "Manatee", the manatees spoke to you. Do you feel things improved for them?

If not, what do you feel would help?

The manatee situation is hard to decipher. There was definitely a time when we were down to 500

manatees in Florida, or at least that was what was being reported. In 2017, the manatee count was a

little over 6600, so things definitely improved. However, they may be declining again, this time because

of cold stress, because the count in 2019 was 5700. They continue to be a very threatened species.

What helps is shoreline cleanups and proper disposal of monofilament fishing line, so that manatees

don’t become entrapped and drown. Motorboat operators in manatee territory should make sure they

have propeller guards, obey boat speed limits, boat slowly to give manatees time to get out of the way,

and avoid boating in shallow water where they live.

How do you feel about killing spiders now, after your time with the "Spiderwomen”?

Even before I went out with the Spiderwomen, I never wanted to kill spiders. Someone long ago told me

that they are our ancestors, living among us, so I carefully gather them up and take them outside.

However, parts of my house threaten to get swaddled in spider webs, so I have actually begun to be less

tolerant of them. I have read this chapter a couple of times in public lately, because yesterday was

Halloween, and I’m amazed at how many people shudder at the mention of “spiders.”

I find them to be mesmerizing creatures—just enemies of good housekeeping!

And…………………………

 

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME

To any period from before recorded history to yesterday. Be safe from harm, be rich, poor or in-between, if appropriate to your choice. Actually experience what it was like to live in that time, anywhere at all. Meet anyone, if you desire, speak with them, listen to them, be with them. When would you go? Where would you go? Who would you want to meet? And most importantly, why do you think you chose this time?

I’d like to be a hunter-gatherer for a while. I hear they had more free time than we do. They lived in little bands, so they had a built-in community, and I wouldn’t mind sitting around a morning fire with some sisters, chatting about buffalo. I’m not particular about which band of hunter-gatherers I’d like to join, but I’d hope for a matriarchal culture.

And I wouldn’t want to experience hunger or war. I’ve seen enough of that in industrialized society. Being a hunter-gatherer in the U.S. before it was North America would be amazing. Maybe I’d get to see the vast forests that I now only dream about. In fact, along the coastlines of the Southeast are crazy middens of oyster shells, and I guess I’d be happy to be a part of one of those for a while. I’d like to sit around a fire telling stories, eating raw oysters. But I’d want horses to be involved—I’ve always wanted a long familiarity with horses—so maybe we’d have to go back to Celtic Scotland for me to find a matriarchal tribe I’d like to join.

Also, I don’t want to have to drag big rocks around trying to make Stonehenge. I just want the fermented beverage and pot of soup and the jerky and the women and the fire.

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Thank you Janisse, for your insight, courage and remarkable voice in helping our earth's other creatures and their wild homes. I hope you find yourself in Asheville, I would love to share a hike with you into our breathtaking forests and mountains.

Don't miss Janisse Ray's other books available at an independent bookstore near you.: